One Day I Slowly Floated Away
by Fullelven
Summary: Caitlynn lost Jack to the Kracken and Will beleives he's lost Elizabeth to Jack... can either cope with their losses or will they give in to their base needs?
1. Chapter 1

**Title: One Day I Slowly Floated Away**

**Chapter: 1**

**Author: CarthsLostPadawan**

**Summary: Begins at the end of PotC 2: DMC. Caitlynn's lost her brother Jack to the Kracken and Will's lost Elizabeth to Jack. Perhaps they can find to cope somewhere in the middle with one another? **

**Disclaimer: Chapter 1 is literally a recount of the ending of DMC, so most of the dialogue is not mine. I own Caitlynn, but even she decided to steal a couple lines from Marty and Mr. Gibbs! **

Fire and shrapnel showered the deck of the Black Pearl, pieces of scorched tentacles accompanying its decent to the scuffed wood below. What was left of the Pearl's unlucky crew emerged from their stations as the massive Kracken slithered back to the depths of the deep blue. Looking around, there weren't many left, just Marty, Ragetti and Pintel, Will, Elizabeth, Jack, Gibbs and Caitlynn, all but Jack looking a bit worse for wear.

"Did we kill it?" Caitlynn questioned peering over the broken balustrade portside. Mr. Gibbs joined her, though his gaze faced out toward the open depths rather than the immediate water below them.

"No. We just made it angry. We're not out of this yet." His gaze turned to Jack who had just walked down from the bridge while a few of the others crawled over debris to join him. "Captain! Orders!"

Jack stood there for a moment, looking around at the death and destruction aboard his precious ship, noting the massive loss of his crew. The ship turned quiet and for a moment it seemed as if even the sea mourned the loss of life that had taken place. Adverting his gaze from all, he made his final solemn decision. "Abandon ship. Into the longboat."

Caitlynn pushed her way through the surprised people to her older brother, her green hazel eyes searching his for a sign of what he could possibly be thinking. "Jack! The Pearl." There was a fear in her eyes at the uncertainty of willing leaving the ship that had been her home for nearly thirteen years now. Jack brought a hand to her cheek, mustering the most serious look he could.

"She's just a ship, Cait."

"He's right, we have to head for land," Elizabeth added before the younger pirate could protest. She glared at the woman, a look of disdain prominent in her eerie depths. There had never been once that she'd ever liked the noble woman from Port Royal, but this time above all else had led her feelings for her to an all-time low.

"'S a lot o' open wa'er," Pintel spoke softly looking over the rail. Ragetti joined him, following his gaze.

"That's a lot o' wa'er," he chimed.

Will Turner made his way towards the front of the group now, asserting his own charismatic pull to the conversation. "We have to try. We can get away as it takes down the Pearl." Caitlynn looked at him questioningly, but his own eyes spoke it all. It was hopeless and if they wanted to live, they had to leave the Pearl. There were no alternatives.

"Abandon ship," Gibbs spoke as he headed toward the longboat. "Abandon ship or abandon hope." His words were what everyone else was thinking but hadn't wanted to admit. Davy Jones wanted them dead and if they didn't get off the ship they would end up being just that. _Dead_. No one moved for a moment as they let realization set in. It was almost as if they were silently saying their own goodbyes to their memories aboard the black-sailed ship.

Pintel and Ragetti lowered the long boat ready to receive whatever equipment they were going to try to salvage to take along with them, while Marty quickly descended the ladder after them. Elizabeth pushed through the others who where grabbing guns and supply boxes and approached Jack who was nostalgically staring at his beloved ship.

"Thank you, Jack," she started, joining the rum-scented pirate captain. He turned his dark brown eyes to her, his face void of its usual mischievous mirth.

"We're not free yet, love." It was obvious by his voice that he hadn't liked having to come back to his ship, but he knew where his duty lied. His compass even said as much.

"You came back. I always knew you were a good man." She moved closer to Jack, their eyes both darting from one another's to their lips and back. They both wanted it, but Jack was surprised that it was she who initiated the kiss.

Will loaded the final box of things into the longboat and prepared to help Caitlynn in when he saw it. His heart clenched in his chest and his breathing stalled as he caught sight of his "fiancée" passionately kissing Jack aboard the ship. For a long moment, he was paralysed, his entire life seemingly being stole out from under him in just one fell moment. However, he was brought back from his painful experience as Mr. Gibbs broke his line of sight and handed him something else which he grabbed numbly. "Prepare to cast off! There's no time to lose!"

Caitlynn, who was behind Mr. Gibbs was ready to get off the ship as soon as possible, her resolve found somewhere in her lingering urge to live. Seeing as he wasn't moving because Will was in the way, she sighed heavily. "Come on, Will, step to!" His gaze flashed to hers for a moment and the hurt there nearly made her physically take a step back. Looking around to see what possibly could be the source of his pain, she found Elizabeth and Jack wrapped in each other's passion. Fire ignited behind her eyes as she fought her own urge to go rip the woman in half.

"Oh Will…" she found herself whispering as a tug on her boot from Mr. Gibbs beckoned her into the ship. Forcing away from the deck, she climbed into the longboat and took a seat next to the broken Turner. She placed a hand on his, but he turned away not wanting her to see the sadness in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Will."

The sound of shackles broke their kiss and Jack realized for the first time Elizabeth's ulterior motive. Pulling away, she flashed him an apologetic glance though she couldn't bare to look into his eyes for longer than just a moment. "It's after you, not the ship. It's not us. This is the only way, don't you see?" Tears choked her voice as she tried to slow her racing pulse. "I'm not sorry."

Jack watched as she tried to lean in to kiss him once more, but he only smiled softly, giving her conscience the excuse it needed. "Pirate."

Her lips lingered before his for another long moment before she finally turned and rushed for the escape ship. Gibbs stood to help her down into it, though she sat down a good foot away from Will. "Where's Jack?" he questioned with obvious hurt in his voice. Tears formed behind her eyes as she tried to assert herself matter-of-factly.

"He elected to stay behind and give us a chance." Her words grant her uncertain looks from the rest of the crew, a truly disbelieving one from the young Caitlynn. "Go!" The woman demanded suddenly and stepping to, they pushed the ship off and away from the Pearl.

_He'll swim out and join us. Just wait, he's got a plan._ Caitlynn tried to rectify in her head, her eyes never leaving Elizabeth who seemed to be engaged in a mental battle of her own. Her mind couldn't yet comprehend just how Will could be with a woman who would treat him so, but pass up herself as if it were nothing at all. She gave her all to Will, even if he did just view them as friends. Elizabeth used him.

The distance between them and the Black Pearl grew until she began to worry if they were even going to wait for Jack at all. And then it happened and the entire world seemed as if it stopped spinning on it's axis. Tentacles crawled up the ship, moving with a guided purpose now rather than a directed order. The crew watched on in dead silence as the Kracken wrapped it's sliming tendrils around the crafted wood of the Pearl and then in the next moment the sounds of splintering wood filled their ears and it drug the precious ship to the grimy deep.

There was no Jack. He hadn't jumped, he wasn't coming toward them… he didn't resurface. "JACK!" Caitlynn cried numbly trying to scramble for a hop over the side of the boat.

"Caitlynn, no!" Will grabbed her around the slender waist as she fought against him, rocking the boat.

"Jack's gone, Caitie," Mr. Gibbs' voice called out to her as she struggled. Placing a calloused hand on her shoulder he shook his head. "It'll only drag you down with it." Her tiny fingers let go of the side of the boat, she and Will falling back into the bottom of it. She turned, sobbing her heart out into his chest as he cradled her close to him. The rest of the crew stayed silent, unable to speak in the awkwardness of the loss. None had been as close to Jack as she had, though she hadn't been a blood relative, she'd been his sister for as long as she could remember. Elizabeth let a couple of her own tears fall, guilt written all over her face.

_I just sentenced him to his death._


	2. Chapter 2

-1**Title: One Day I Slowly Drifted Away**

**Chapter: 2**

**Summary: Caitlynn has locked herself away in one of the cottages Tia Dalma has let them stay in while they wait to leave for Singapore. Can Will ease up some of her pain and be the light in the dark?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters but Caitlynn.**

"Caitlynn?"

She hadn't spoken, let alone been seen, since they went up river to seek help from the only person they knew could help them, Tia Dalma. Locked away in one of the bedrooms of the huts that Tia had allowed them to stay in, she detached herself as far as possible from the rest of the world.

"Caitlynn, it's Will."

The door cracked open some, however it only allowed him to peer into darkness. Her slender fingers gripped the door she hid behind, but that was all she left visible.

"Can I come in?"

The doorway slid open enough to allow him entrance into the dark. The moment he emerged fully into the other side of the abyss, the door shut mechanically behind him and sniffles filled the otherwise quiet air. The soft sounds of chanting could still be heard to those who actually listened for it, the natives who were morning Jack's passing finally heading for their own huts to sleep. It wasn't until she struck a match to light the beeswax candles near the cot on the floor that he actually saw her.

Her dark brown and turquoise locks were dishevelled, the caramel skin of her face stained pink and wet from crying. Her green-hazel depths weren't far from different of that, dull and listless as she tried to numb herself to the aching of her heart.

"God, Cait, come here."

He hadn't actually expected the hardened woman to listen to his beckoning call, but she did. In an almost immediate reaction she was across the room, face buried in his sculpted linen-shirt clad chest, unable to control the saline falling from her eyes. His arms wrapped easily around her shorter, slender frame, a hand finding its way into her mussed hair and holding her to him.

The pain that racked her soul mirrored one that was currently stalking through his own. Both were dealing with loss due to Jack, though Caitlynn was mourning the actual loss of him where Will's was a bit more complicated. As they had been loading the longboat in preparation to escape, he'd caught eye of Elizabeth kissing Jack. He was a man, and an adult at that. Though his hand in love may have been less-than-experienced, he knew the plain difference between a good-bye kiss between friends and a passionate kiss between lovers. That meeting between Jack and Elizabeth had nothing "friendly" about it… so to speak.

So lost in his own thoughts, he didn't catch her wistful orbs gazing curiously at him, a look of worry just beneath their misty depths. "Has she said anything to you?" The once strong, assertive tone was lost in her voice as she spoke, replaced with a small one that sounded lost and choked with tears.

Jerking a little more unpleasantly from his thoughts than he'd meant to, his honey browns found her slowly, blinking as if each movement would bring him to actually understand her question that he'd barely caught. "Huh? Oh… um, no. But she's still very upset…"

Turning away from him, she literally stomped across the wooden floor over to the window to gaze out upon the fireflies and candle-lit vigil that still remained. Her tiny knuckles turned white as they gripped at the frame of the opening, her face showing her internal struggle to keep what comments she had internal. Instead she tried to focus on the muddy river that moved slowly beneath them, so dark that not even the sky or the candles would reflect in it.

"Caitlynn…" Will pressed as he placed a hand on her shoulder. The moment his skin made contact with the damp fabric of her navy long-coat her resolve melted away, her form shaking slightly as she tried not to speak on it.

"She doesn't deserve you, Will. She doesn't even deserve to breathe!" Unable to look at him as she made her shameful confession, she continued her blank staring, her vision blurred by another onslaught of tears. "You know my brother almost as well as I. When have you not known him to do something incredibly idiotic and selfish in order to profit himself and himself only?!"

Will let his hand drop and leaned against the worn wood of the hut to stare at her curiously. She turned her head away from him though, not allowing him even a slight look at her eyes. "You saw them as did I, the both of them while we loaded into the longboat. Then she gets in all smug like and tells us that Jack just 'elected' to stay behind," her voice faltered and she found herself gnawing away at her bottom lip in order to keep herself from losing it completely. "I'm not buying it, Will. I can't, I won't, and you shouldn't either."

"Caitlynn, I know you're hurting. I am too… but you can't go and blame Elizabeth for losing Jack!" Will furrowed his brow, unable to honestly say that he wasn't a bit upset with the insinuating that Elizabeth had a hand in Jack's folly. "It was Jack's greed and stupidity that landed him in the belly of the Kracken."

"Greed? Jack only wanted to prove to Father that he could make it as a pirate! He didn't know that Jones was going to be so crazy! Besides, I was ill and it was the only way he could save me!" She argued, repulsed by the fact that Will had the gall to blame Jack for this. "And just correct me if I'm wrong, William Turner, but it is because of Jack that you were able to save the harlot on more than one occasion and the sole reason that you were able to meet your father? Am I or am I not correct?"

"Jack only took me along the first time because they needed my blood to lift the curse and he knew he could get to the Pearl then. The second time I was merely there trying to convince him to help Elizabeth and he sent me to settle his debt to Jones! In his selfishness, I accidentally found my father! Elizabeth had rescued herself!" He argued back vehemently. Caitlynn crossed her arms across her chest and raised a brow him in them, a smug look on her face.

"But you _were_ able to save your bonnie lass twice and meet your Dad, right?"

Will would have yelled back if it weren't for the fact that in that moment, she had never before sounded more like Jack. In fact, he found himself unable to stay angry at all and instead sank down to sit on the cot to think. Caitlynn, who hadn't thought it to be so easy, stayed a safe distance away from him and stared at his features in the flickering candlelight.

The solemn chorus of chirping crickets and croaking frogs floated in through the window to create for them their own sentient soundtrack to life as they knew it in that moment. So it was as Will sighed heavily in defeat that the mellifluous sounds of the swamp life was broken enough for them to be brought back to the task at hand. "I… I'm losing her Caitlynn."

The youngest member of the Sparrow family lowered her gaze, falling in to sit next to Will. "I think she loved Jack… We have all seen more death than most see in a lifetime, so you wouldn't think that this would be anything different for her this time." He chanced a look up at the floor and was surprised to find her green-hazel eyes there waiting on his earthy-coloured hues to find them. "She's so… distant from me, Cait."

"She doesn't deserve you," she started, though there's no venom in her voice now. "You are so… Will… you." Caitlynn sighs, frustrated with her own inability to put her feelings into words. "You're worth more than you know, Will Turner. More than she could ever imagine. I loved Jack dearly, he was my brother, but for her to choose him over you would be completely idiotic. He's got no future, other than that of the high seas. He spends most of his nights inebriated out of his mind, changing girls more often than his clothes, he's got nothing. You have a future back in Port Royal-"

"Had, Caitlynn. You forget that Elizabeth and I were sentenced to death then. You honestly don't believe that now that we've both gotten away that they're going to welcome us both back with open arms, do you?" His placed his face in his hands only to bring them both back through his gorgeous mahogany locks.

"Trifles." Gently, she placed a hand on his chin, begging him to look at her. Her heart raced as he amazingly did so, her fingers surprised that his skin was still so soft besides the scruff that had grown. "The point is, you are the most amazing man I have ever met in my life. For her to want to throw her life away in place for something that would have never panned out is ridiculous and foolhardy on her part. I only wish I could be half as lucky as she."

Will's eyes glittered at her words, he not having known that she felt such things. Though they'd known each other for a long while, able to call each other good friends, he was ashamed to admit to himself that most of the time he thought her to be no different than Jack himself. He, at that moment, found himself searching her own eyes for answers to a question better left unanswered.

Caitlynn blushed and broke their gaze, feeling uneasy from the very intensity of his orbs. "Promise me, Will, that you'll keep hope. You have a future for love, not like me." It was at this that Will found himself furrowing his brow, his hand now doing just as hers did with him.

"What do you mean by that? Haven't you ever been in love?" He questioned softly. Her face blanched for a moment, but not so that he could notice.

"Yes. But it doesn't matter because it's easy to tell that his heart has already been claimed by another." She stood suddenly, making her way over to the door. "Maybe you should just go talk to her, Will. Make her pay attention, tell her your worried. Maybe she'll ease your fears, maybe she'll confirm them. But you have to try."

Will followed her, though his mind was unable to follow her train of though. "But-"

"I'm alright! Really Will, you were loads of help. I'm getting tired anyway, crying seems to take the energy right out of you." She ushered him toward the door, a faux smile plastered on her features until he was out and the door was latched securely behind him. "One of us has to have a happy ending, right?"

**Author's note: Chapter two is done, finally! I really hope you all like this. I didn't get a lot of feedback on it before, so depending on what I get with this addition, I may or may not add another chapter. It's up to you all, truly!**


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